Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you very much to EDC for coming.
I would like to raise two points that I would like your expertise on.
The previous speakers who came before us brought along their expertise in development and human rights. Although I was very concerned about Mr. Alex Neve saying “I don't really care whether there is something...” when they said this is the approach Canada takes. Canada takes, as you rightly pointed out...to work together. But their expertise is in this, and your expertise is in business.
I want to go on to what Bob Rae said about the investment process and the business that you've been doing, which is giving money, and the impact, which you rightly pointed out, of the mining industry in Canada. But we seem to have forgotten one serious factor. My colleague from the NDP keeps talking about DRC because he made a trip to DRC. I made a trip to Tanzania and to Zambia, where the copper industry is going on, and to Papua New Guinea and all these places, and as my colleague said about Mongolia, a tremendous investment is being done and impacting the local economy. Papua New Guinea's ambassador to the UN said 12,000 people in Papua New Guinea are not living on dollars a day, which he's talking about, but are actually making a fantastic living out there. So we have this whole economic factor out there.
I have two points on the issue you brought out here. One, what impact, which you're already talking about, will it have on the Canadian companies moving out? For example, we know China is going out to Africa and signing all these deals out there, and there are no standards as far as China or other countries are concerned. They are moving right in there. Now, I'm not saying that Canada should not have standards. That is why we were at this year's round table conference, and we came out with very good suggestions with every stakeholder there. It was very good. The companies, the NGOs, and everybody took part in that. That should be the first stepping stone.
The second factor is the international standards that you're talking about—human rights. As you rightly pointed out, the three environmental ones that came out of the World Bank are applicable to everyone across the world. Why can we not then, at that given time, wait for those international standards to develop through the pressure that the NGOs are talking about, going to their members and going to all these things, using the same pressure to come out so that there is an international standard out there, so that everybody has a level playing field, including China and everyone? Nobody is talking about China. My friend talked about Talisman out there. Let's go to Africa and see what is happening with the investment that China is making out there, in absolute disregard of everything here.
My question here would be about the impact of Bill C-300, the chilling factor on investment, not here but abroad, as well as on the international standards, which are not a level playing field.